My journeys and ramblings about life, running and seeking help for an eating disorder.

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The call came on Friday afternoon, there treatment facility is recommending their highest level of care: Partial Hospitalization. I am both thankful and horrified. I know I need to get better but since when did I get sick enough to barely get medically cleared enough for the most intensive outpatient program available to ED patients?

The obstacles now: figuring out my work situation (I work full time) and get everything sorted out with FMLA and time off and money and insurance and admission dates, oh and the most challenging obstacle: figuring out some kind of plausible lie so that my whole (very gossipy) office doesn’t get into my business. That last one is by far the most challenging. But, I have to do what is best for me no matter what.

My ED has been just positively TERRIBLE the last few days since I heard from the treatment center and it doesn’t help that my body is almost screaming for food (it’s in one of its cycles where after I have been restricting for so long that my body starts to tear me down mentally to try and get food) but I can’t give in because my ED is just so much stronger than normal. I think it has something to do with knowing it is about to have to eat that makes my ED stronger, just trying to prove that I need to retreat from this “recovery” and run to save myself and it is taking every ounce of my being to keep going and keep seeking out treatment as the admission process progresses.

With this also came the very real realization: I am going to have to forfeit my marathons- Chicago and Marine Corps. I am so depressed I don’t even want to get out of bed when I think about it, I just want to sleep forever. I know for non-runners it’s impossible to understand why someone would want to run or run 26.2 miles for fun but for me it’s a huge part of my life and I feel broken and dead knowing I will have to defer those in the next few days. That’s all I want to say about that right now; maybe later I’ll post more about the process, training, what I look forward to about next year but right now I just don’t feel anything other than grief and numbness.

Maybe I should talk to my doctor, maybe the lows have something to do with the meds I am on but this blow of losing my marathons just feels like the last bit of me has been killed by the ED and honestly, I am starting to feel too tired to fight it anymore even though I am closer than ever to treatment.

So that’s where I am at. I’ve been quiet on here lately just because everything has kind of been in a standstill until I found out from the center and because I just haven’t wanted to deal with people in person or online as I processed this marathon thing, still just feeling numb and isolated but I’m trying to make the effort. My doctor is checking in weekly so I think she is set to call tomorrow or Tuesday but since i need some paperwork for her to fill out for treatment and my marathons I have to call tomorrow either way. I am going to go to HR first thing too about my benefits and time off for treatment and then call the Center. I guess I also have to deal with Chicago and Marine Corps Marathon organizers, idk.

I can’t run like I used to. I’m not strong enough. My head starts pounding my body shaking like when you have the flu and your whole self feels like jello. My legs begin to buckle after just a few miles. I know it’s because I eat less than 200-300 calories right now. I can’t even talk myself into 500 like I used to on distance days. I know it’s because there is 0 carbs in those calories but I can’t I physically can’t grab the food I need. I know this happens when you drop almost 30 pounds in less than 2 months but still.
I just want to run my list of reasons to get help were:

1. So I can run better again

2. To not die.

In that order. Running is so much to me and helps me so much in other ways and I am losing it. The marathons are approaching and I am losing grasp of them day by day.

I wish someone understood someone could make me do this, force feed me, anything. I wish I could call my mom but idk, I’ve been so burdensome lately since she found ou that I don’t want to stress her out more (& I’m scared to be lectured). I just don’t know what to do so I am sitting on a bench on the side of the trail, crying. And watching other runners, too weak to get up and run home, too dizzy to get up and walk.

I hate myself for this.

Ps. Please ignore how fat I look here, I had my hydration belt on and all my trail gear with me.

The click of the lock, that’s where it begins. The rest of the world is slightly deafened by my headphones as I walk down the three flights of stairs fidgeting with my app and figuring out what playlist I am … Continue reading →

I am going to get help in one week but not if my ED has anything to “say” about it.

Trigger Warning for anyone with disordered eating or an eating disorder.

It’s almost worse now that I have an appointment at the doctor, kind of like now that I anticipate coming clean and opening Pandora’s Box that the part of me controlled by this thing is louder, meaner and harder to ignore than ever. The thoughts I have when I eat are telling me that I am going to get fatter, if I gain any weight between the last time I was there and this time that I am a failure, not going to be believed and have to come up with a back up lie or go with the safe route: cancel the appointment.

I have been trying SO HARD though to eat more. I have some decent mileage on the schedule this week and ran 9 on Tuesday so I have been hungrier than usual but it’s such a challenge. If I even go over my preset limits 200/500 (200 on days I run anything less than 8 miles, 500 on days I run greater than 8 miles) I will start to eliminate the extra food via purging. It’s not even hard to do anymore too, I just contract my muscles and it’s back. That also makes my ED mind screamit’s normal and not harming me and while I know it’s harming me, the normal part is hard not to believe because part of me kind of thinks everyone vomits their food sometimes.

I’m also not convinced that 500 calories a day (which is so hard to admit I eat that much) is too few. Sometimes, yeah, I feel run down but I am busy, a runner and have a lot going on. People get run down and 500 calories a day is a LOT of food, 200 I know is a bit low but 300 just feels like too much especially because I eat 500 some days and it averages to 300 in the end.

See, and yet I read what I just wrote and part of me feels like it is wrong that 500 calories is too few especially when I am running and 200 is unfathomable for most people. But yet, the feelings that I am okay still prevail and I am not sure what will happen next Thursday. I am not sure how to keep overcoming them because even when I “win” and eat a tad more, I feel infinitely more unjustified in asking for help because I don’t think I have a problem because I ate a bit more. Even when I purge that, I am so convinced purging is normal that I feel stupid thinking I have an issue.

I’m not sure. There is no real point of this post other than to try and organize my thoughts,try to convince myself to keep fighting to get to that appointment next week and to not cancel or lie. I’m not sure what will happen. 1 week from now seems so far and so sickeningly close.